alternative medicine

Is anybody familiar with this series? It appears to be a skeptical series about the health 'industry', and Danish TV (DR3) broadcasts two episodes this afternoon (14:50 & 15:35). The impression that I get from Wikipedia about the guy behind the series is very positive: Timothy Caulfield...

I just saw one of those commercial-decorated cars on the road advertising this “Living Water”. Prominent was a message to “call for franchise information”... But also things like “hydrogen rich” (????) The website: http://www.livingwaterhealthsolutions.com/ Quotes from scripture in a...

I just moved to a new town and I was looking for a veteranarian. I did a "Yelp" search and some other background work and found one nearby that had good reviews, so I called. First thing they did was put me on a lengthy hold, which is a big red flag to me in the first place, but in their "on...

It almost looks to me like the defense attorney was trying to get her client off on the pretense of "heath freedom". Full article because the original is in Spanish and I thought it would be useful to translate it to English since the one article in English I found has so much less information...

Very occassionally government manages to produce legislation that actually makes sense: http://www.health24.com/Natural/News/Are-alternative-medicines-in-trouble-20140903 From the article: Of course the industry has erupted into a rage-filled sea of indignation and are suing the minister of...

I picked this up from the Swift Blog in the hopes of generating a bit of discussion in the wider Forum. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2378-last-several-weeks-in-science-based-medicine.html From the Science-Based Medicine blog...

Hi, all. I'm a student at UoGuelph in Ontario, Canada (just started MSc after BSc, here, in Chemistry) I've been aware of some things that have stood out to me as pseudoscience here for awhile now and I'm hoping for some opinions from those more well versed in the topic. For example, the...

http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2014/04/the-saatchi-bill-a-quacks-charter.html#comment-88171

Select findings: 37 percent believe the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is preventing access to natural cures for cancer and other diseases because of pressure from drug companies. 20 percent believe doctors and the federal government continue to push vaccinations even though they know they...

This popped up on the Wikileaks G+ feed this evening. So are they going to embrace this new political direction?

This thread about a mother killing her child by choosing herbs, homeopathy, and woo over antibiotics, and several facebook arguments I've been in recently have got me thinking a lot about the nature of people's beliefs regarding alternative medicine. I found, serendipitously, an excellent blog...

Amazing (to me, at least) to see this detailed and seemingly very credible dissection of "traditional Chinese medicine" in the online magazine Slate. ..."exporting Chinese medicine presented a formidable task, not least because there was no such thing as “Chinese medicine.” For thousands of...

Hi all. My lazy old friends are going crazy, posting everything that Shane Ellison, MS, says and from my limited amount of research, all I can see is that he claims to have been an ex-employee of big pharma, although the web only mentions him on alternative-therapy sites. And it's the same bio...

Nice skeptical article. Good guy I had not heard of before.

I invite to participate in this discussion, not with the goal of either promote or attack alternative Methods but to discuss the scientific facts behind the ideas. Remember great number of currently endorsed orthodox treatments started by either empirical, popular or traditional medicine...

I originally posted this on skeptics.stackexchange.com, but it's not a question suited to the site. So I'm trying again here. My wife and I recently found out we're expecting. While looking into a hospital for the delivery, I found that all the hospitals in my area use midwives for the births...

"A Henderson doctor combines chiropractic and neurology to treat just about anything" http://lasvegascitylife.com/sections/news/henderson-doctor-combines-chiropractic-and-neurology-treat-just-about-anything.html This article is nothing more than advertising for a practitioner of so-called...

Recently, a local newspaper here in Montreal, La Presse, has started publishing a series of article denouncing "health gurus". For three months they investigated a variety of such quacks and are now exposing them in the paper and on the newspaper's website. I wish they had gone further in...

Retired flight surgeon and Skeptical Inquirer reporter Dr. Harriet Hall has criticized the U.S. military for sanctioning acupuncture and permitting "treatment" by cupping and moxibustion. Maybe we should have let them keep on playing with goats. At least there they weren't hurting anyone.

Does anyone know of a list of traits that can help a person spot a health-care fraud? I've been posting in another thread about a "healer" who has sucked in an aunt and uncle (they're beyond help) and my elderly mother with dementia. Beyond the usual stuff, that he removes space aliens and...

Lordy, where do I begin? I am literally in a fight for my mother's life. She has dementia (and mobility problems, lots of falls), and I finally had to throw in the towel and put her in a care center. It's been rough. I'm an only child, and it's always been Mom and me. She has siblings, and...

In the BMJ there has been an interesting discussion on the merits of CAM, with rational scientists like David Colqhoun leading the fight (but getting voted down for doing so) http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1075?tab=responses Responses are in inverse posing order.

About five years ago, a childhood friend was seriously injured in a freak accident. She worked as a bookkeeper for a grocery store chain and a TV stand attached to the ceiling directly above her desk partially collapsed. The TV fell on her head, breaking a couple vertebrae. She has had a couple...

Hi guys, just saw this in the local news today. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/6286401/Vitamin-therapy-fails-to-deliver-for-Sir-Paul

CBS Radio just broke in with an alert; According to an Apple Press release, Steve Jobs has died.

http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/02/7227603-desperate-sick-indonesians-lie-across-railroad-tracks-as-therapy First of all: There's a current flow in standard railroad tracks? :confused: Second: It makes you wonder what exactly convinces them that electric current will cure...

This article by Tim Bolen, a self-described "consumer advocate" has got to be the most vicious, as well as most dishonest attack piece against Dr Steven Novella I have read to date. I have read a few other anti-Novella attack pieces on some "alt-med" message boards, especially after Novella's...

"Quackwatch has posted a digital copy of Lessons from the History of Medical Delusions, by Worthington Hooker, M.D. The book was published in 1850, when scientific medicine was in its infancy, but Hooker correctly identified what he called "the principal elements or cases of medical delusions"...

I hear that Offit is planning a new book on alternative medicine.... Quite a lot to bite off imo, considering how his field of expertise is in vaccines/pediatrics primarily. I think one of the best books was Rose Shapiro's "Suckers" - "How alternative medicine makes fools of us all"

I've stumbled upon a number of powerful anti-vaccine personalities over the years on TV, radio and Youtube, but this fiery performance by alternative medicine "crusader" Gary Null tops them all. His extreme anger, loudness and body language are nearly Hitlerian. Naturally, his rant is almost...